For image forming or printing on both sides of a recording medium, the recording medium can be inverted by reversing the direction of travel of the recording medium after the front side has been printed.
For image reading or scanning on both sides of a document, the document can be inverted by reversing the direction of travel of the document after the front side has been read.
Providing an apparatus with an image formation part, an auto feed reading part, and a stationary reading part, typically results in upsizing of the image forming apparatus.
To read or scan images printed on both sides of the document, the document can be inverted by reversing the direction of travel of the document after the front side has been read, as described above. In some apparatus, the direction of travel of the document is reversed by temporarily ejecting the document, after one side has been scanned, to an output tray intended for documents that have completed scanning, and then retracting the document back inside. If the user is located near the ejection side of the output tray, the document is ejected toward the user when the document is temporarily ejected to the output tray for reversing the direction of travel of the document. Thus, the user may erroneously assume that reading of both sides of the document is completed, and may pick up the document ejected to the output tray by mistake.
If a single-sided reading is sufficient but a double-sided reading is selected by mistake, the double-sided reading is cancelled by forcibly picking up the document when a single side reading is completed and the document is ejected. In some apparatus, the document is ejected to the output tray disposed under the input tray. The input tray then blocks the user from forcibly picking up the ejected document.
To form or print images on both sides of a recording medium, the direction of travel of the recording medium needs to be reversed after completing image formation on the front side, as described above. However, if the direction of travel of the recording medium is temporarily reversed after the recording medium is ejected outside the image reading apparatus, the user may erroneously assume that all image formation is completed, and may pick up the ejected recoding medium by mistake.